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Observational studies have shown that hyperuricemia is associated with excess risks for ischemic heart disease (IHD) and hypertension. In this study, investigators used genetic data from two large prospective studies (58,000 and 11,000 participants) to determine whether confounding might account for associations between blood uric acid levels and IHD and blood pressure (BP).
As prior studies have suggested, increasing blood uric acid levels and hyperuricemia (>6.7 mg/dL) were associated with increasing risk for IHD; hyperuricemia was associated with high systolic and diastolic BPs. We know that variations in the SLC2A9 gene are responsible for progressively higher levels of serum uric acid; thus, if elevated uric acid causes IHD and hyperten…